Defense lawyer Hisyam Abdullah, who represents Doan, told CNN the lawyer who was appointed by North Korea to watch the brief has been instructed by their embassy to disengage himself from observing proceedings.

A second lawyer for the Vietnamese woman, Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, told CNN he expects the prosecution case to last until November, while the defense will start in the new year.

"Doan looks forward to the trial where her innocence will be established," said Teh.

The two female suspects fact court in Malaysia on March 1

'She was ... used by someone'

According to Malaysian authorities, Kim was at the airport on his way back to see his family in Macau when his face was swabbed with the deadly nerve agent.

A powerful chemical weapon, the poison kills by sending the nerve system into overdrive causing convulsions, paralysis and eventually death due to respiratory failure. It is banned under the 1993 chemical weapons convention.

Kim immediately sought help at a service counter, but while waiting at the airport clinic he fainted. Although an ambulance was called, Kim died on his way to the hospital.

Tests on his face and eyes postmortem revealed the presence of the deadly nerve agent.

The eldest of the Kim siblings, Kim Jong Nam was born to a famous married actress and kept in hiding in case his existence hampered his father's chances of taking over from the country's founder, his grandfather Kim Il Sung.

Educated around the world, Kim Jong Nam worked for the North Korean government for a while and was long considered to be his father's favorite child, according to analysts.

But after he was embarrassingly caught at Tokyo airport with a fake passport in 2001, allegedly on his way to Disneyland, he rapidly fell from grace.

He moved to Macau in the mid-2000s, where he maintained a lavish but subdued lifestyle, fearful of a younger brother who analysts say would always see him as a threat.